#thinking about gutman's death too. thinking about it.

[whoslaurapalmer]

goddddd i always know it's coming but the end of the maltese falcon (book) gets me every time. like. the end of the movie is about greed. but the end of the book (which is also still about greed but hold on) is about. consequences. relationships. sam goes through the whole book getting this almost constant commentary from other characters about how he always gets off scot-free, no one can ever pin anything on him, he gets away with doing every just-on-the-edge-of-horrible thing he does, and being pleased about it, and part of how he ends things with brigid is sam's own desire to manipulate others to keep the control he has over his life and how he lives and making sure he gets out after all the falcon shenanigans (especially bc the only thing sam's actually guilty of there is some decent physical violence, but not murder), and then he goes to effie when it's all over, his secretary, the only person in the whole entire book sam feels something like respect for, the only person he'll meaningfully almost-apologize to, and that's when sam actually genuinely suffers consequences for what he's done. is he wrong to have brigid arrested? no, and effie knows that. but effie believed so wholeheartedly in brigid, and not just brigid but sam, and her relationship with sam, and in herself, and sam picks that up and ruins it and effie can't stand him now. she doesn't want him to touch her at all. and it's the only time he's genuinely horrified by what he's done. he spends the whole book seriously but still jokingly telling effie he's no good and her putting up with him regardless and then he has to face that he really is no good to the one person who really matters to him, to the person who used to let him get away with it, who can't anymore

[whoslaurapalmer]

i LOVE the thought of kit and lemony doing a detective agency together so much (these two siblings who have always investigated separately finally investigating together.......) BUT. bertrand and kit being detectives and bertrand being miles really is so peak here. especially in that "minor role in canon and dies early" way. i too want him alive as much as possible and i think the two of them investigating would be a really fun turn here, like how would it go down without his death and what would be bring to the investigation, and i spent some time last night trying to figure out, if thursby's death or miles' death is more of a catalyst, but. it really is necessary, bc it's part of why sam DOES let brigid get arrested. there's like a...... principle of loyalty between sam and miles. they don't like each other a great deal, but sam still goes, That's My Partner, and i have a moral obligation to find his killer, because That's What You Do When You Lose Your Partner, especially when your partner is a detective, and that IS something i can see in kit

and atwq is technically lemony already starring in his own maltese falcon remake, and i think having a story without lemony here opens up different and tasty dynamics between everyone else, especially with beatrice. kit being in this detective role instead.........i considered lemony being like. potentially a narrator, bc i think that's fun, if lemony is narrating his sister's story, with lemony's knowledge of events and him potentially like.....misrepresenting certain aspects of the story to protect kit, to protect beatrice, even if there's no narrator role in the maltese falcon (although the book is in like third person objective and therefore there is some Universal Force As A Narrator, even maybe hammett himself, bc of sam as the pov character but there's like Zero of his thoughts, just his actions and expressions), but lemony also, doesn't NEED to be here, and it might take away from kit, and then how is lemony's character functioning not only as a narrator but as someone everyone else might know............

that gutman dialogue with esme and carmelita is so AAAAAAA...........it's everything!!!! it's so esme!!!!!!! she WOULD throw carmelita away for whatever she wanted, especially the sugar bowl!!!

i did idly wonder about like. the sugar bowl re: lemony though. with the theory that it has information that will exonerate him, and beatrice trying to get it for that purpose, but i didn't like that bc i thought it was too lemony-centric. and to me the major point of the maltese falcon is greed, and in a story about greed nobody gets what they were after, that's the whole central piece, they don't and they can't and can never get the real maltese falcon (hangfire gets the bombinating beast statue but then is literally swallowed by the physical representation of his greed.......) so it would probably make the most sense if the sugar bowl here really is empty? and/or even a fake on its own, a replica of the real sugar bowl, maybe the lid doesn't open or it's a solid piece like the fake falcon, only capable of being nicked or broken (i keep thinking of esme like. smashing the fake one. and then immediately regaining her composure and moving on to the next part of the hunt)

the kit vs esme of it all. the kit vs geraldine. the esme vs beatrice. the kit vs beatrice. geraldine vs everybody else around her. oh there's so much fun in there. about acting, selfishness, desire against greed......

r being effie is SO GOOD bc i keep picturing beatrice coming to the office and r getting to say to kit "you'll want to see her anyway, she's a knockout", beatrice IS a knockout!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of course r would say it!!!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!

snicket and denouement is the most perfect agency name ever and i love it with my whole entire heart. dewey being iva.................Much To Think

i started rereading the book last night and what really struck me about brigid in the opening is like. spinning this fake story about thursby, there's such a ruthlessness in it, such a betrayal, like she wasn't friends with thursby but he's in between her and something she wants so it's him or her. and it's doing this to make herself seem as innocent and naive and blameless as possible. and beatrice being that way about olaf!!!!!!!!!!!! and then beatrice doing it to everyone and using them as steps to get what she wants and then finally running into the one person who won't have it

of course we're left with beatrice killing bertrand, which breaks my heart. i don't think even any incarnation of bea is THAT terrible or that truly manipulative. like, in the way that brigid is different from gutman (i think their greed comes from separate places but i am not yet committed to that thought bc it's been a while since i've thought about them, but also their ultimate mannerisms are different, gutman even in his rage is level-headed, brigid is not), bea is different from esme, esme is the worst version of beatrice, more desperate, more cunning, more deceptive, there is a heart in beatrice that esme lacks, or just a different kind of a heart. ugg and bea as the actress that is always acting...................she really is. she really really is. maybe bertrand sees part of that acting too.

the sugar bowl as the maltese falcon

kit snicket as sam spade beatrice baudelaire as brigid o’shaughnessy

count olaf as floyd thursby duchess r as effie perine bertrand as miles archer dewey denouement as iva archer esme as casper gutman geraldine julienne as joel cairo carmelita spats as wilmer cook

[suzannebyrne]

Billy Bush’s 4 Steps for Winning Back Public Trust (Including Kissing Babies)

Billy Bush, reading the book Ass-holes, wants to make America like him again … by doing things like posting this photo. (Photo: Billy Bush via Instagram)

Billy Bush is sorry.

If you didn’t catch that with his Hollywood Reporter sit-down, you did with his Good Morning America interview — it’s been a busy week. Yes, after lying low for seven months, he’s on a public redemption tour in hopes of winning back the respect of the public — and maybe getting a new job. (What, you don’t expect him to live on his $9 million dollar Today show severance do you?)

We’ve seen enough celebrities screw up to notice a pattern — the steps stars take to try to wiggle back into our good graces — and Billy’s apology tour, for laughing during Donald Trump’s infamous “grab them by the p****” comments, is pretty formulaic with a hint of over-the-top (a new photo of him kissing a baby). Let’s break it down…

Billy Bush’s first TV interview since the scandal was with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America on May 22. GMA is the biggest rival of his former show, Today, and he is in the market for a new job. (Photo: Heidi Gutman/ABC via Getty Images)

1. Admit you’ve been a big ole ass. Billy’s been doing it pretty much all along — right away after 2005 audio was leaked leading up to the presidental election, and then later, after his subsequent firing from the Today show, on social media. (The photo above — in which he’s reading a book his friend wrote that he jokingly (?) said had included him, called Ass-holes — is one example.) Seven months later, he’s stepped it up. He told the Hollywood Reporter that when he heard the tape, three days before the rest of the world did, “I was shocked and alarmed and totally and completely gutted. It was awful. And my participation was awful, too. I remember that guy, he was almost sycophantic. It was my first year as co-host of Access Hollywood, and I was an insecure person, a bit of a pleaser, wanting celebrities to like me and fit in.” Talk about taking full responsibility.

The dad of three took it up a notch by telling a story about how his 15-year-old daughter, Mary, cried when she heard the tape and called him out for laughing along at Trump’s lewd comments. “[She] called me from boarding school, and she was in tears: ‘Dad, Dad, Dad,’ and I said, ‘Everything is going to be fine, Mary. Everything’s going to be OK.’ It’s just instinctively what you say to your daughter. And she said, ‘No, why were you laughing at the things that he was saying on that bus, Dad? They weren’t funny.’ It hit really hard, and I stopped for a second, and I said, ‘I have no answer for that that’s any good. I am really sorry. That was Dad in a bad moment a long time ago. You know me. I am really sorry that you had to hear and see that. I love you.’ She needed to hear that, and I certainly needed to tell her that.”

And it was more of the same in his interview with Good Morning America this week, going so far as saying, “I sacrificed … my own dignity in that moment.”

2. Make it clear you’ve apologized to injured parties. Bush made it clear that he apologized to Nancy O’Dell, his one-time Access Hollywood co-host whom Trump was talking about shamelessly trying to bed while she was married — though he wouldn’t get into specifics about what he said. (“I need to keep that between me and Nancy.”) O’Dell confirmed on her show, Entertainment Tonight, that Billy sent her an apology three weeks ago and she wished him well in a polite, but distant manner. (Perhaps because he probably should have apologized seven months ago.) Though no mention of any apology to soap star Arianne Zuker, who was another target of the so-called “locker room talk.”

Billy also he made sure to distance himself from Trump in both interviews, making it clear they have no relationship outside the handful of interviews they did. He also noted that he hadn’t talked to the now-president since 2015.

3. Talk about what you’ve done to change. The public always wants to know that the person has done something to try to change and Billy offered up… his exercise regimen and reading list. He talked at length about his soul searching, which included a stint at a Napa Valley healing retreat, meditating,  yoga, boxing, reading books like 10% Happier, and walking on hot coals with spiritual guru Tony Robbins.

Billy Bush, leaving yoga class on Feb. 10, has been working on himself physically and mentally, he claims. (Photo: Splash News)

4. Kiss some babies. Perhaps our favorite step though is this one. We had to laugh when, in this midst of trying to get people to like him again, his former colleague Hoda Kotb shared pix of Billy kissing and cuddling her baby, Haley Joy, earlier today. It’s like: OK, we get it. You want us to think you’re a good guy. Just a hint, but a little subtly goes a long way.

Haley met billy ???????????? sweet day xo

A post shared by Hoda Kotb (@hodakotb) on May 25, 2017 at 6:39am PDT

Bush also made it clear that while walking on fiery coals and reading books are good for the soul and everything, he wants to get back to work.  He’s been “developing a series designed to show audiences a deeper and more empathetic side to him,” the Hollywood Reporter reporter.

So we guess we should prepare for more photos of Billy cuddling babies on his long road back.

Read more from Yahoo Celebrity:

Randos at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival

Rosario Dawson Speaks Out About Sudden Death of Her Cousin at 26

Halle Berry’s New Puppy Is So Cute You May Squee

[kacydeneen]

'Instruments of Terror': Beto O'Rourke Defends Mandatory Gun Buyback Plan

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke defended his call for mandatory buybacks of certain semi-automatic weapons in an exclusive interview on "Meet the Press" Sunday, pushing back on criticism from Republicans — as well as some from within his own party — who think the Democratic presidential hopeful’s proposal has gone too far.

O'Rourke said the opposition to his proposal shows “how screwed up the priorities in Washington D.C. are” while evoking recent, high-profile mass shootings like the one in his hometown of El Paso, Texas, NBC News reports.

New York Moves to Enact Statewide Flavored E-Cig Ban

“I refuse to even acknowledge the politics or the polling, or the fear or the NRA. That has purchased the complicity and silence of members of Congress,” he said. “And this weak response to a real tragedy in America, 40,000 gun deaths a year, we’ve got to do something about it and I'm proposing we do something about it.”

O’Rourke's plan would ban weapons classified as “assault weapons” as well as high-capacity magazines and silencers. It would also mandate that people who own weapons that become illegal under the new policy sell their guns back to the government.

Rise in Health Uninsured May Be Linked to Immigrants' Fears

Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, who has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, told CNN on Friday that he thinks the plan plays into the talking point from Republicans that “Democrats are coming for your guns” and said that he thinks the proposal isn’t “wise.”

Photo Credit: Heidi Gutman/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images 'Instruments of Terror': Beto O'Rourke Defends Mandatory Gun Buyback Plan published first on Miami News